“Alicia was having trouble breathing,” I continue, regaling her with tales of my wife’s medical woes, which included an unrelated heart episode. “And so was Max (my four-year-old), and both had fevers of 105, so I took them, separately, to the ER.

“Then Max and Alicia both got pneumonia, so back to the ER, and then everyone else got sick, and now it’s six weeks later and the only time I’ve been outside is to shovel the sidewalk to avoid lawsuits from the postal carrier.”

Yes, it was a typical holiday free-for-all, with three of our four kids — including two under the age of five — eagerly participating in that annual family smackdown known as cold season.

Things started in predictable fashion a few weeks before Christmas, as they do every year, with all of us trotting dutifully off to a local gymnasium for our flu shots, secure in the knowledge we would strengthen our immune systems and enjoy a blissful, virus-free winter.

Cut to two weeks later when, as has typically been the case, Max came down with symptoms that suspiciously resembled the flu — though I’ve been assured, silly goose, that would be impossible — which then spread to his little brother, and big sister.

And before you know it, I’m running from room to room with vaporizers and thermometers, trying to elevate heads and shove spoonfuls of honey into mouths too young to take cold medication.

And then the unthinkable happened: Mommy got sick.

I got sick too, I should point out, but no one really cared about this. It simply meant the garbage didn’t get sorted properly and there was no one around to lick the crumbs off the cookie tray. Big deal.

But with Mommy flat on her back for five days — ay carumba — our already chaotic household started to resemble the Kurtz-in-the-jungle scenes from Apocalypse Now: hallucinatory, perceptually distorted, with bouts of random shrieking.

“Mommy!” shouted Max, still feverish as he groped for the family matriarch.

“Mommy!” shouted Sammy, two, sneezing up green goop as I forced saline drops up his nostrils.

“Joel, is that you?” she asks, hoping, no doubt, it’s some unorthodox new telemarketing technique.

When they arrive two hours later, tentatively covering their mouths to guard against germs, our house resembles the scene in The Avengers where Mark Ruffalo turns into The Hulk and starts randomly smashing things.